North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one carried out by Pyongyang last October.

Citing an unnamed senior European defence official, the UK Daily Telegraph said that North Korea has agreed to share all the data it received from the test last year as both countries face Western pressures over the development of their own nuclear programmes.

"The Iranians are working closely with the North Koreans to study the results of last year's North Korean nuclear bomb test," the official told the newspaper.

"We have identified increased activity at all of Iran's nuclear facilities since the turn of the year... All the indications are that the Iranians are working hard to prepare for their own underground nuclear test."

The official also said that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian scientists to study the results of last year's underground nuclear test.

Six-nation talks involving China, Japan, Russia and the United States, as well as North and South Korea, started in 2003 but have been repeatedly suspended and have failed to yield concrete results.

On December 23, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1737 imposing sanctions on Iran for its repeated refusal to cooperate fully with the UN atomic energy watchdog or to suspend uranium enrichment.

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Result of Iranian delegation visit to N Korea positive
Tehran, Jan 23, IRNAlink

An informed Iranian source here Tuesday defined the aim of the recent visit of Iran's deputy foreign minister to North Korea as negotiation with its officials for studying and developing bilateral relations.

Deputy foreign minister for Asia-Pacific and Commonwealth of Independent States affairs, Mehdi Safari recently paid a visit to North Korea at the head of a political delegation.

The source added that Iran and North Korea enjoy good relations and the recent visit took place on the context of the mutual relations.

The source told IRNA that Safari's visit to Pyongyang had taken place following a trip by North Korean officials to Iran.

According to the reports, the two sides signed a plan for exchanges in the cultural, scientific and educational fields.

The source also quoted the North Korean deputy foreign minister Kim Yong Nam as saying that the atmosphere for the talks was positive.